1. Field of the Invention
This invention has relation to animal snares in the form of flexible wire loops positioned along animal trails and elsewhere to intercept animals which are to be snared. The invention presents a support for such snares which serves to support the snare loop in such a position as to minimize the opportunity and chance for the loop to be lost before it is penetrated by an animal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A preliminary search of this invention revealed only one patent, and it does not appear to be pertinent to the concept of this invention. It is U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,142 for ANIMAL SNARE to Gregerson, granted April 11, 1978. The patent discloses an animal snare including merely a length of multi-wire steel cable having a swivel connection at the anchor end thereof and having a snare lock of a particular design connected to the other end of the cable and encompassing a midportion of the cable to form a snare lock or cable lock 17. While the cable lock shown might work well in connection with tthe animal snare support of the present invention, there is no concept of supporting the snare loop in such a manner as to minimize loss of that loop before an animal is snared by it.
In addition to simply hanging a snare loop along an animal trail from above, as suggested by the disclosure of the Gregerson patent, it is known to use support wires fastened to trees or fence posts or anchored to the ground which stakes to position animal snare loops along game trails and elsewhere. Often, before the present invention, it was the multi-strand steel cable that was anchored to the tree, ground, or other permanent fixture with the support wire simply extending along the cable up to the point where the loop begins. At this point, a snare lock such as that shown herein and such as that shown in the Gregerson patent is placed adjacent the end of the support wire.
Before the present invention, great difficulty was encountered in designing the snare lock and positioning it in such a manner that it would not become dislodged to cuase loss of the snare loop before it was encountered by an animal to be snared.
The inventor and those in privity with him are aware of no prior art closer than that discussed above, and are aware of no prior art which anticipates the claims herein.